If we can make maternal deaths as rare as they are in the healthiest countries, we can save almost 300,000 mothers each

830 women die from pregnancy-related causes every day.1] In 2015, 302,700 women in the world [died as a result of pregnancy or childbirth.

For many aspects of global development, it is true that the world made a lot of progress in the past and we know that we can make a lot of progress still. We’ve shown this before for child mortality and it is true for maternal health too: maternal health is much better than in the past; it’s still awful today; and we can do much better.

In the visualization here we compare three scenarios:

• How many mothers would die today if we still had the very poor health of the past? Even the countries with the best maternal health today had very high maternal mortality rates in the past. In Sweden and Finland in 1800, for example, around 900 mothers died for every 100,000 live births nearly 1-in-100].[2] In today’s world where [140 million women give birth each year this would mean that 1.26 million would die.
• The world today: the actual number of women who died from pregnancy-related causes in 2015 was 302,700.
• If all regions had the health of today’s best-off countries: Today the world region with the lowest maternal mortality is the European Union, where 8 women die per 100,000 live births. In today’s world where 140 million women give birth each year, if all countries had this level of maternal mortality, 11,000 would die.[3]

We can see how much global maternal health has improved: if we still had the living standards of 1800, around 1.26 million women would die from pregnancy every year. Almost one million more women would die each year.

But we also see how far we could go. If all regions achieved the healthcare and living standards of the EU very few women would die. Almost 300,000 fewer deaths; a reduction of over 95%. If we think of it in this way, almost all of the world’s maternal deaths are preventable with adequate maternal care, safe deliveries, good nutrition, and hygiene and sanitation.4] This is also the [message of the World Health Organization: “Every day, approximately 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth."

That most of the world’s maternal deaths could be prevented also becomes clear when we consider that 95% occur in low and lower-middle-income countries. Maternal mortality is much more common in poorer countries.

It's unacceptable that a woman in Sierra Leone is 300 to 400 times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than a woman in Sweden or Finland, and we know it is possible to prevent these deaths.

If we can make maternal deaths as rare as they are in the healthiest countries in the world we can save almost 300,000 mothers each year.

Endnotes

[1] The World Health Organization estimates that in 2015, there were 302,680 maternal deaths globally. Averaged over the year, this would be equal to around 830 maternal deaths per day [302,680 / 365 = 830].

2] Here we assume a global maternal mortality rate of 900 per 100,000 live births in 2015. The UN estimates there were around [140 million births in 2015. This works out at around 1.26 million maternal deaths [140 million / [900 / 100,000] = 1.26 million].

[3] Here we assume a global maternal mortality rate of 8 per 100,000 live births in 2015. The UN estimates there were around 140 million births in 2015. This works out at around 11,000 maternal deaths [140 million / [8 / 100,000] = 11,000].

4] This of course opens up a much larger question of how many deaths are truly preventable, i.e. how low could maternal mortality really go. We base our scenario here on the EU average rate, but we know some countries [have an even lower rate: Finland has a rate of 3 per 100,000 live births, and Sweden has a rate of 4. It’s unclear how attainable this is for all countries, or whether this rate could fall even further.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “If we can make maternal deaths as rare as they are in the healthiest countries, we can save almost 300,000 mothers each ” by Hannah Ritchie (September 20, 2019), published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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